Originally Posted by
Podolak
Yeah, the salt is really tough. The next county over uses sand, I think I'd prefer that.
Minneapolis actually uses a chemical and salt mixture on their roads. It lowers the freezing temperature even more, but is even more corrosive. Ideally it reduces refreezing of melted ice and so reduces rutting and black ice, but there is still a significant amount of rutted ice on the sides on the road in my experience.
I wouldn't suggest using anything new on a winter bike here. Thankfully we have quite a few used bike and component dealers in the area.